Sir Alfred Bakewell Howitt CVO (11 February 1879 – 8 December 1954^[1]) was an English medical doctor who became a Conservative Party politician.

Howitt was born in Nottingham, the youngest son of Dr Francis Howitt, a doctor from an old Quaker family whose relatives included the anthropologist Alfred William Howitt. He was schooled at Epsom College and then graduated in natural sciences from Clare College, Cambridge,^[2] before training as a doctor at St Thomas' Hospital in London. After several years as a hospital doctor in London, he served during the First World War in France as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, before returning to London in 1919 and practising as a physician in Berkeley Square.^[3]

Howitt first stood for Parliament at the 1929 general election in Preston, where he failed to win either of the two seats.^[4] He was unsuccessful again at the Preston by-election in July 1929.^[4]

Howitt entered the House of Commons on his third attempt, when he was elected at the 1931 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Reading in Berkshire.^[5] He was re-elected in 1935 and held the seat until he stood down at the 1945 general election.^[5]

In Parliament, Howitt worked with doctors in other political parties, and was chairman of the Parliamentary Medical Committee in 1943.^[3]

He was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in April 1928,^[6] and knighted in the 1945 New Years Honours List, for political and public services.^[7]